When Lincoln Riley arrived at USC in 2022, the transformation was immediate.
The Trojans went 11-3, reached the Pac-12 Championship Game, produced Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and came within one victory of reaching the College Football Playoff. USC averaged more than 41 points per game and possessed one of the most explosive offenses in the country.
Four years later, Riley may finally have something he did not have on that 2022 team.
A defense capable of being just as important as his offense.
That is why the most interesting question surrounding No. 14 USC entering 2026 is not whether the Trojans are good.
It is whether Gary Patterson's arrival as defensive coordinator could make this Lincoln Riley's best overall team since coming to Southern California.
The ingredients are there.
USC returns 17 starters, the most in the Big Ten. Quarterback Jayden Maiava is back after one of the best seasons in the country. The entire starting offensive line returns. USC has two proven running backs. The Trojans signed the nation's consensus No. 1 recruiting class.
And now Riley has turned his defense over to one of the greatest defensive minds of the last quarter-century.
This could finally be the USC team in which Lincoln Riley does not need his offense to save the defense.
Gary Patterson Changes the Equation
Patterson's resume requires very little introduction.
During 21 seasons as TCU's head coach, Patterson won 181 games, captured six conference championships, produced 11 Top 25 teams and finished seven seasons ranked in the Top 10.
But the statistic that should excite USC fans most has nothing to do with his record as a head coach.
Patterson's defenses at TCU led the nation in total defense five times. From 2008 through 2010, TCU led the country in total defense three consecutive seasons, something only two other programs in NCAA history had accomplished at the time.
Now Patterson gets USC athletes.
That is an intriguing combination.
Riley has spent most of his career trying to find a defense that can complement his elite offenses. Alex Grinch could not do it consistently. D'Anton Lynn made USC considerably better defensively, dropping the Trojans from 34.4 points allowed per game in 2023 to 24.1 in 2024. In 2025, USC improved again, allowing 23.0 points and 350.8 yards per game.
Patterson is not being asked to rebuild one of the worst defenses in college football.
He is taking over one that was already becoming respectable.
His job is to take it from respectable to dangerous.
And that may be the difference between USC being a Top 15 team and becoming a legitimate national championship contender.
Patterson's Defense Is Built to Create Problems
Patterson is traditionally associated with the 4-2-5, but calling his system simply a 4-2-5 undersells what makes it difficult.
His defenses can essentially split the field, allowing the secondary and front to operate with different responsibilities and even allowing USC to play different coverages on opposite sides of the same formation.
The objective is not simply to line up in a particular defense.
It is to make quarterbacks hesitate.
Patterson has also emphasized that his 2026 USC defense will not simply copy what he ran at TCU. He plans to retain elements USC already executed well while adding and adapting concepts from his own system.
That evolutionary approach could matter.
Big Ten offenses range from Ohio State and Oregon's NFL-caliber passing games to the physical running styles USC will encounter in places such as Wisconsin and Penn State. A defense must be able to survive both.
Patterson has spent decades designing defenses to do exactly that.
Riley perhaps summarized the attraction best when discussing Patterson's ability to remove an opponent's best offensive weapon and make a defense outperform its raw talent.
At USC, Patterson may have more raw talent than he has had almost anywhere.
There Is Already Plenty to Work With
This is not a defense devoid of experience.
Linebacker Desman Stephens II returns after leading USC with 89 tackles last season.
Safety Christian Pierce is back after recording 64 tackles, three pass breakups, an interception and a forced fumble.
Defensive tackle Jide Abasiri had 3.5 sacks last season and brings unusual athleticism for a player approaching 300 pounds.
USC also returns its top three players in sack production.
Then there is the young talent.
Freshman defensive end Luke Wafle arrives as one of the nation's most highly regarded recruits after recording 23 sacks and 37 tackles for loss during his senior high school season.
The Trojans have surrounded those players with a coaching staff deliberately constructed around Patterson. Paul Gonzales, who spent 13 years working at TCU, has joined USC as safeties coach and defensive pass-game coordinator. Mike Ekeler takes over the linebackers and special teams.
Patterson is not being dropped into someone else's defensive staff.
USC has begun building one around him.
Meanwhile, Lincoln Riley Still Has His Quarterback
The excitement surrounding Patterson should not obscure what USC has on the other side of the football.
Jayden Maiava is back.
Maiava completed 65.8 percent of his passes last season for 3,711 yards, 24 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, while adding six rushing touchdowns.
Most impressively, he finished the season with a 91.2 QBR, best in the nation.
This will be his third season working with Riley and offensive coordinator Luke Huard.
That continuity is unusually valuable in modern college football. USC says it is the only team in the country returning the same starting quarterback, head coach and offensive coordinator for a third consecutive season.
Maiava does not need to become Caleb Williams.
He may not need to.
If Patterson's defense can consistently keep opponents somewhere in the low 20s, USC no longer needs its quarterback to produce 40 points every Saturday.
That could make Maiava even more effective.
The Running Game Could Be Outstanding
USC also possesses something Riley's teams are not always associated with: potentially one of the deepest running back rooms in the Big Ten.
Waymond Jordan returns after rushing for 576 yards on only 88 carries last season, an average of 6.5 yards per attempt. His season ended after just six games because of injury.
In his absence, King Miller emerged as one of the discoveries of the season.
Miller rushed for 972 yards and eight touchdowns while averaging 6.2 yards per carry.
Now USC gets both.
And they will run behind an offensive line that returns all five starters, something USC says no other FBS program can claim entering 2026.
That could become enormously important against the Big Ten's more physical defenses.
USC does not have to be exclusively Lincoln Riley's aerial circus anymore.
It can run the football.
It can protect its quarterback.
And potentially, it can play defense.
That is what makes this team different.
There Is One Major Offensive Question
USC does have to replace Biletnikoff Award winner Makai Lemon, and that is not a minor loss.
Sophomore Tanook Hines becomes the most experienced returning receiver after catching 34 passes for 561 yards last season. USC also added NC State transfer Terrell Anderson, who caught 39 passes for 629 yards and five touchdowns in 2025.
The talent is there.
The certainty is not.
Someone needs to become Maiava's dependable third-down and big-play target.
With the quarterback, running backs and offensive line USC returns, wide receiver may actually be the biggest offensive question entering the season.
That says quite a bit about how complete the rest of the unit looks.
The Schedule Will Tell Us Quickly
USC begins the season with three games it should win: San Jose State, Fresno State and Louisiana.
Then everything changes.
The Trojans travel to Rutgers before hosting No. 2 Oregon on September 26.
One week later, No. 17 Washington comes to the Coliseum.
Then USC travels across the country to play No. 18 Penn State.
After a bye and a road game at Wisconsin, the biggest home game of the season arrives.
No. 1 Ohio State at USC. Halloween night. The Coliseum.
Two weeks later, USC travels to Bloomington to face No. 6 Indiana, the defending national champion.
Five teams on USC's schedule begin the season ranked in the AP Top 25.
Three are in the Top Six.
There is nothing easy about this.
But there is also opportunity everywhere.
USC gets Oregon and Ohio State at home. The Trojans do not play Notre Dame this season. There are two byes strategically placed in the second half.
If USC is truly improved, the schedule gives it repeated opportunities to prove it.
Oregon Is the First Big Test
September 26 could change the entire trajectory of USC's season.
USC lost 42-27 at Oregon last year. This time the Ducks come to Los Angeles.
Imagine USC entering that game 4-0.
A victory over the preseason No. 2 team would immediately push the Trojans toward the Top 10 and establish them as a serious Big Ten contender.
It would also give us our first major indication of whether Patterson's defense is ready for the elite offenses USC will see later against Ohio State and Indiana.
If the Trojans cannot slow Oregon, the questions remain.
If they can?
Then this becomes a very different season.
Ohio State at the Coliseum Could Be Enormous
And then there is October 31.
USC and Ohio State are two of the iconic brands in college football, yet they have not played since the 2017 Cotton Bowl.
Now the Buckeyes come to Los Angeles as the preseason No. 1 team in America.
This is precisely why USC joined the Big Ten.
Ohio State. USC. Halloween night. The Coliseum. Potential playoff implications.
If USC is still sitting with one loss or fewer by then, this could become one of the biggest USC home games in years.
And once again, the defining matchup may not be Lincoln Riley's offense against Ohio State's defense.
It could be Gary Patterson against the Buckeyes' offense.
That is a sentence USC fans probably could not have imagined a few years ago.
Why This Team Could Be Better Than 2022
The 2022 Trojans remain the standard of Riley's USC tenure.
They went 11-3. Caleb Williams won the Heisman. They came within one win of the College Football Playoff.
But that team was heavily dependent on Williams and the offense.
USC averaged 41.4 points and 506.6 yards per game that season. It often had to.
The 2026 version does not have a quarterback as individually spectacular as Caleb Williams was in 2022.
But it may have something more valuable over a 12-game Big Ten season: balance.
Maiava is an experienced high-level quarterback. Jordan and Miller give USC two dangerous running backs. All five offensive linemen return. Seventeen starters return overall. The nation’s No. 1 recruiting class adds depth.
And Patterson now controls a defense that had already improved to 23 points allowed per game.
The 2022 team may still have had the better offense.
The 2026 team has a chance to be the better football team.
This Is Also a Defining Year for Lincoln Riley
There is no avoiding the larger context.
Riley is entering Year 5.
His USC records have gone 11-3 in 2022, 8-5 in 2023, 7-6 in 2024 and 9-4 in 2025.
Last season's 7-2 Big Ten record showed that USC had moved back in the right direction, even though losses to Oregon and TCU prevented the season from ending with the momentum the Trojans wanted.
Now the roster is older. The offensive line is experienced. The quarterback is established. Recruiting has surged. And Riley has hired Gary Patterson.
The pieces are becoming difficult to blame.
At some point, USC has to turn them into a playoff team.
So, Is This Riley's Best USC Team?
It very well might be.
USC begins the season No. 14 in both the AP and Coaches polls, which feels less like a prediction of the Trojans' ceiling and more like recognition that they still have something to prove.
The offense should score. Maiava should be better. The running game could be excellent. The offensive line is unusually experienced. The schedule provides several chances for signature victories.
But the reason USC has a chance to become something more than another exciting Lincoln Riley team is Gary Patterson.
USC does not need Patterson to recreate the nation's No. 1 defense immediately.
It simply needs him to take a defense that allowed 23 points per game last season and make it a little more disruptive, a little more confusing and a little more dependable in the fourth quarter.
Imagine a Lincoln Riley offense playing with a defense that regularly holds opponents under 20.
That is the formula USC has been searching for since Riley arrived.
In 2026, he may finally have it.
TD Strike Prediction
The schedule is too difficult to predict an easy path through the Big Ten. Oregon, Washington, Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana give USC one of the most consequential schedules in the country.
But this roster is good enough to beat some of them.
Prediction: USC finishes 10-2, remains in the Big Ten Championship race into November and reaches the College Football Playoff.
And if Patterson turns USC's defense into a legitimate Top 20 unit?
Then 10-2 might be underselling the Trojans.
Lincoln Riley has already had a Heisman Trophy winner at USC. He has already had an elite offense.
What he has never had in Los Angeles is an elite offense paired with a Gary Patterson-caliber defense.
That combination could produce his best USC team yet.